Dear Kochs: We're still here

Democrats are doubling down on their attacks against the Koch brothers.

Prompted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats spent millions of dollars spotlighting Republican ties to the billionaire conservative megadonors Charles and David Koch. But despite Republicans — and some Democrats — publicly decrying the strategy after Tuesday’s GOP wave as an ineffective waste of money, Reid told allies on election night that he planned to continue hammering the brothers, according to an operative close to him.

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And big-money liberal groups ranging from the Democrats’ Senate campaign arm and House super PAC to the outfits run by billionaire Tom Steyer and conservative-turned-liberal enforcer David Brock all signaled that they intended to pursue anti-Koch spending and oppo tactics headed into the 2016 election.

Brock’s American Bridge outfit on Thursday began circulating a memo to senior Democratic congressional aides and big money groups making the case for redoubling the effort to make the Kochs into boogeymen.

Titled “Dear Koch Brothers: We Aren’t Going Anywhere,” the memo, obtained by POLITICO from a source who received it, contends that the GOP takeover of the Senate makes it more important — and potentially more effective — to call attention to the Kochs’ influence in the GOP.

“This will be easier now that they are in power,” Brock wrote. Citing polling showing that the Kochs — who were relatively little known at the beginning of the midterms — became more disliked as attacks from his group and its allies escalated, Brock said, “Our efforts will continue, because the alternative — staying quiet as these secretive billionaires pour hundreds of millions into politics to further their own bottom line — is impossible. … We’re going to dig deeper into their business in states that are key to 2016 — at the presidential, Senate and gubernatorial levels.”

The Kochs in recent years have emerged as a leading force in American politics thanks to a network of affluent donors the brothers convened to fund a series of nonprofit advocacy groups. Now overseen by an umbrella outfit called Freedom Partners, the network, spearheaded by the aggressive group Americans for Prosperity, spent around $290 million during the midterms, playing a pivotal role in softening up vulnerable incumbent Democratic senators such as North Carolina’s Kay Hagan and Colorado’s Mark Udall with tough ads linking them to the unpopular President Barack Obama.

As the network’s spending soared, so too did liberal scrutiny of the brothers, with Reid assailing them on the Senate floor as “ un-American” oil barons who are trying “to buy our democracy.” His repeated premeditated attacks on the Kochs emboldened Brock’s group and eventually others to pick up the beat. And Reid suggested to allies Tuesday night that his intended target may have been Republican politicians as opposed to voters. His thinking, according to an operative close to him is that, despite Democratic big money gains in 2014, the party will never be able to keep pace with the Kochs and other conservative donors, so making them toxic to Republican politicians is the best hope for tamping down the unlimited cash race.

Some liberals involved in the Koch attacks argue that the strategy may have helped win one Senate race — Democrat Gary Peters victory over Republican Terri Lynn Land in Michigan — and kept others close.

There could also be additional incentive to keep up the Koch attacks for American Bridge and other Democrat-aligned groups preparing for a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Not only is she is expected to come under fire from the Koch political network, but she has long shown a fascination with the funders of the conservative movement — and sources say that interest extends to the Kochs.

Yet continuing the anti-Koch crusade is sure to irk some Democratic politicians and consultants, who grumbled — mostly privately — that money spent on the strategy was a waste of valuable resources.

“It’s utterly ineffective. Elections have to be about voters and what candidates will do for them,” said Thomas Mills, a North Carolina-based Democratic strategist who has worked on Senate campaigns. “And this strategy is more about the candidates. It says, ‘Look at me! Help me — they are spending money against me.’ There’s no connection between that and voters.”